The 1999 Christmas Revels: In Celebration of the Winter Solstice begins a 3 week/16-performance run at Harvard University's Sanders Theatre on Friday, December 10th

with performances through the day after Christmas. Revels has produced annual winter solstice celebrations in Cambridge since 1971, taking audiences from the courts of Medieval Europe to the hills of Appalachia, from Victorian parlours to the plains of India, and from the icy tundra of the Northlands to the sun-drenched villages of Meso-america. This year, once again, Christmas Revels audiences will be transported across both time and continents...

This year's Christmas Revels is set in the Italian Renaissance,

an age when Science, Art and Music experienced a magnificent rebirth. This astounding burst of creative energy led to a tremendous flowering of the arts (including painting, architecture, music, sculpture and dance) and prolific invention in the world of science.

With a company of more than 80 actors, singers, dancers and musicians,

including brass, wind and string bands, The Christmas Revels is a large-scale, lavishly costumed production replete with Italian folk tales, a visit from Leonardo da Vinci, and a delightful feast of Renaissance music and dance (not to mention a total eclipse of the Sun!).
Revels favorite David Coffin leads an extraordinary company of singers and musicians including the Renaissance dance band Renaissonics,led by John Tyson on recorder, pipes and fiddle, and the a cappella early music trio, Tapestry, with mezzo-soprano Laurie Monahan, alto Daniela Tosic and Cristi Catt, soprano. Additional performers include The Cambridge Symphonic Brass Ensemble; a zany company of Commedia dell' Arte actors directed by Ron Jenkins, a frequent collaborator with Italian clown and Nobel Prize winning playwright Dario Fo; and the 40-member Revels Chorus of adults and children. And, as in all Revels productions, the audience gets into the act, singing carols, and dancing with the cast through the theater and into the grand lobby of Memorial Hall during Christmas Revels' stirring signature piece, "Lord of the Dance."
Production Staff includes Patrick Swanson, Stage Director; George Emlen, Music Director; H. Peet Foster, Set Design; David Rosenburg, Lighting Design; Heidi Hermiller, Costume Design; and Virginia Morton, Production Manager.